An atheist once admitted in a debate that, although he did not believe in the resurrection, the only logical conclusion was that the apostles did. He said it was completely absurd to think that the apostles made up a story of the resurrection, or faked it, or just thought it in their minds. How did he arrive at this conclusion? He said that the lives the apostles led after the resurrection, the testimony that they gave…and especially the testimony of laying down their lives as martyrs…could lead to only one conclusion. The apostles really thought they saw Jesus raised from the dead.

Now this atheist also believed that the apostles were hallucinating, but his conclusion is at least partly right. The lives of the apostles bore witness to what they had seen. What about our lives? We have the same chance that Peter and John had in the Gospel today. They saw an empty tomb and it says that St. John “saw and believed.” We can see the same empty tomb today in Jerusalem. Do we believe? If we do, is there the same kind of evidence in our lives such that even an atheist would have to say of us that there is no doubt that we really believe we have encountered Jesus raised from the dead?

Today, 2000 years later, all Christians gather on this Easter Sunday to boldly proclaim together, “We have seen the Lord!” Alleluia!